Infidèle
by Brunette
Summary: I always hoped I'd see you again, Jack. Just not in bed with my wife.
1. i'un

_Author's Note:__ I feel a premonition of Mary-Sue ... oh, well. I fear people get a little too paranoid about that. I've read some marvellous Mary-Sue's, and I'd like to think I've written a few, too. _

_Disclaimer: (because I have to) Obviously, I don't own the _Newsies_. If I did, do you really think I'd _just_ be writing fanfiction about them? Come now, people. I guess, technically, I own Evangeline. Big whoopin' do._

* * *

_i'un_

He kept his eyes on her. He'd watched her every day, at this time, for the passed week. But only out of the corner of his eye; only in fleeting little glances that could easily be considered random. He'd finally banked his mind on it. He'd finally made his decision. He was going to stare at her. Stare at her until she could feel the depths of his eyes boring into her face - until she looked directly at him, with a question reflecting in those deep, violet pools.

Her eyes were violet.

It had taken him three days to catch it, but they were. The first day, he'd thought they were only intensely blue. The second day, he took in the possibility of their hue being an odd sort of hazel. The third day, she'd bumped into him accidentally, and looked up to appologize. She'd forgotten him the instant she murmured, "excuse me", but he took great care in memorizing every contour of her face in those fractions of seconds. And he'd taken studious note - her eyes were violet. Not blue, not gray, not hazel - true, distinct violet.

He'd fallen in love with her eyes.

True, he easily fell for the mere appearance of a woman, and he'd fallen for hers. His mind wandered into lusty dreams simply glancing at her striding, confident form. A woman had to be confident, hereabouts, or a conman would pluck her like a fox plucked a fat hen from the coop. She walked with a brisk, focused grace; he'd watch the quick, fleeting steps of her high-laced, narrow black shoes beneath the slightly lifted seam of the threadbare skirt. He was fascinated by her.

That day, Jack Kelly fell in love with the wind.

It had been a wretched, gray, windy sort of day - the first day he saw her. The invisible force took on the guise of a lusting man; he tore at the skirts and pinned hair of the women at the market - Jack had watched, bemused, as they fought off the aggressive advances of the refracting air. He was a twenty-seven year old bachelor, and so he indulged his eyes in chancing a skirt swept up, or perhaps the more common press of thin fabric against the firm flesh of thighs.

He fell in love with her legs.

The wind caught up the dirtied seam, and tugged it up in its wolf-like claws. Jack's eyes chanced a swift, fleeting glance at the faded, patched stockings that clung to her shapely calves. He'd felt his breath catch in his throat as he struggled to pull his eyes upward - to see what plain little mouse horded this secret beauty.

Her beauty was no secret.

She had been struggling to keep her flowing skirt down in its proper position, and so neglected the ravaging of her hair. He watched, transfixed, as the wind pulled the neatly-pinned locks from their combs and whipped the dark, spiralling curls about her flushed, heart-shaped face. She hadn't known he was watching - studying the silken strands fluttering in a hundred different directions with the analyitical interest of a scientist.

He fell in love with her hair.

Jack's eyes didn't waver, now, as he stared intensely at the sweet face - watched the sunlight softly caress the ivory cheek with an odd sort of longing building up in his throat. He was beyond wanting her. She was a necessity. He could not live through this day without knowing her name - without speaking to her, if only for a moment.

She looked up.

He filled his lungs with oxygen in preparation - breathed in deeply the sun-sweetened air. There was no need for further delay, or he'd lose her. His feet stepped off at a quick gait. He focused on slowing himself to a saunter - to appear less anxious and more debonair - but it did him little good. The moment she noticed he was approaching, she turned and started off at her brisk little walk again.

Jack broke into a run.

He was going to catch her, and he was going to talk to her. He could not sleep tonight if he didn't. She was weaving expertly through the massed crowd of thick-set girls and toothless bags - weary beauties married-too-soon, and homely old maids who would always be. He kept his eyes steadily on her retreating form. The gaggle was thinning. Soon, she would be out on the sparce street, and he could reach her more easily. Just a little further ...

She was gone.

Jack paused, breathing heavily to regain himself. His gaze traversed the entire street in a moment, but the neat little bun of ebony curls was nowhere to be seen. He breathed a ruthless sigh. He had to find her. He could not sleep tonight without speaking to her. Turning to his left frantically, he noticed it. The glimpse of a woman starting down an alley in a characteristic, determined gait. Without a second thought, he was running towards the mouth of the alley. He felt his shoulder catch on some nameless bulk - heard a profanity shouted in rude demanding of manners.

He did not stop.

Not until his feet were pounding the gravelly ground beneath him in steady intrepidation. Not until he came up beside her; not until he passed ahead of her, turned around, and looked her in the eye. She paused, standing before him for that split second in time. Jack took in a deep, needed breath, trying to hold her gaze intently with his own. Those beautiful, endless pools of liquid sapphire met his for a moment - a sweet, glimpsing moment. Then her entire visage contorted. Something like mundaneness settled itself into the angles of her face.

She groaned.

Jack's brow furrowed at this enigma as she started off again, brushing passed him as if he were nothing at all. As if his study of her - as if his mind's only focus upon her - as if everything he had done to see the little details of her - _as if his entire week_ meant nothing to her.

Which of course it did.

Why shouldn't it? But he could not lose her. If he lost her this time, he'd never forgive himself. Not when he was this close. _C'mon, Kelly be smooth. You're a smooth guy - sweep her off her feet!_ He took hold of her elbow, merely a foot from his arm. She whirled around, accusation becoming every line of her face. Angrily, she jerked her arm from his grasp.

"Let go of me!"

She was about to start off again. He stopped her with his voice:

"No - don't! I ... I want to talk to you."

Jack noticed the nervous contraction of her throat, and the fear that manifested itself rather obviously in her eyes. Her mouth gaped wordlessly for a moment. Then she was walking again.

He followed her.

"Hey - wait!"

"I don't know you!" she returned nervously over her shoulder, the quick staccato of her steps intensifying with terror.

Jack Kelly wasn't the sort to give up.

"No - wait, please!"

She wasn't slowing down. _C'mon, Kelly ... Somethin' clever ..._ He had to say something. There had to be something he could say that would ... Her beauty! Her eyes! Her hair! Yet nothing remotely intelligent managed to whizz by in the blur of his mind that would dazzle her to a stop. Even now, her form was fading into the ravine of buildings. There had to be something. Why did she have to be moving so fast ...? Moving ... What _was_ that ...

"SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY AS THE NIGHT!"

He'd shouted at the top of his voice. It had been the only thing that had come into his mind, and he wasn't even sure from whence it had come. Somewhere in the past ... somewhere quite far off, and distant. But it had come, and it had been ... well, it hadn't been exactly what he'd wanted to say. But it worked. It worked because her feet slowed. Slowed until ...

She stopped.

Jack did not waste his chance. He jogged up to her, meeting the skepticism that emmitted from her enigmatic orbs. He brought himself to a stop, heaving in breath more than ever. He wasn't an old man, but he was not a teenager anymore. Maybe he'd be better off leaving the sprinting to younger boys.

"That was beautiful."

But her tone was not as he had expected. It was harsh, and accusing. As if he had no right to say anything beautiful. As if there was no reason for him to receit forgotten poetry at any time. Fortunately, Jack Kelly was well-versed in dealing with disbelief. Tipping his head to the side, he flashed her a signature, arrogant smirk.

"You like it?"

Her eyebrows jumped up her forehead, and her wide eyes appeared to be measuring him. The corners of his mouth darkened slightly. He imagined that she liked what she saw.

"Yes, I do," she answered precisely. "My husband's a Lord Byron man, too."

Beneath his motionless expression, he stared at her in shock. _Husband?_ But she couldn't have a husband. He'd been watching her ... and, and waiting to talk to her, and ...

This was all some kind of joke.

Jack allowed his smirk to fade into a quick, cleared throat. Her lips turned in a smile that a stranger to the conversation would consider polite, but in every way to Jack conveyed smug triumph. She declined her head in a farewelling nod, and took a step away from him. Her walk was no longer rushed, now. It was still brisk, and in its previous self, only ... relaxed. Jack realized then that she had probably assumed he was out to mug her before. Now that she'd found he was not ...

She was testing him.

She had to be. Unabashed, Jack hurried to catch up with her again. He came into step beside her with ease; he rather liked how easily their strides complimented each other.

"I don't believe you. I don't believe ya're married."

That sickeningly sweet smile of victory remained plastered on her face as she rose her left hand and allowed the sunlight to catch on the thin, humble band of gold.

He couldn't give up. He'd been watching her, and waiting just to speak to her. He wasn't going to let this just fade.

"You wanna go out with me? Tonight or tomorrah?"

Her musical little chuckle mocked him. "Why would I want to go out with you? I'm happily married. Besides, I don't even know you. I wouldn't dream of having an affair with a stranger."

The last two phrases only emphasized her ridicule of him. He would not let her turn him away.

"Ain't them the best kind?"

Her footsteps froze. Turning her head slowly, she met him in the eye. He felt as if those sapphire pools were now blades of violet - boring into his very soul.

"You're serious."

Jack shrugged. "Why else would I 'a followed you all this way?"

She shook her head, starting to walk again. "You're a fool."

He did not follow her this time. He stood right where he was, and allowed his voice to meet her ears in cryptic shivers:

"How do you know you ain't the fool?"

He watched her boots come to rest right next to each other. He watched her whole body turn, and watched the light of certainty fade from her glittering gaze.

"I might be the best thing that's ever happened tah you, and you might just be letting me go."

Jack held her gaze a moment longer, and with the reluctance of a lover's farewelling kiss, turned his eyes to the ground. With a forlorn sigh, he shifted his body towards the way he had come, and started off at a defeated gait for the main street. The air all about him seemed stiller than usual, despite the growing noise of the traffic and market. He didn't miss a wave of it, though. He heard the scrape of leather against ground rock, and the quick, clicking intrepidations from behind.

She followed him.

* * *

_Next part soon, I hope! It's only a three-part, so hopefully it won't take too long._


	2. deux

_deux_

He loved her.

It had been another spance of seven days - a simple spec in the fabric of time, but it had been the best that he could remember. She was different, to him. The most obvious difference being the fact that in that span of a week, they had yet to share a bed. She had not allowed him even to kiss her until the fourth day. Indeed, the first part of the week could have easily been regarded as innocent. Her husband, she said, was a factory man. He had a brain for bigger things, she would state with stand-offish pride, but he still worked an eight-hour shift every day excepting Sunday and holidays. This drove her to an odd sort of loneliness not for simple intimacy, but for conversation. They met and talked, that first week - the first days without any discernable physical affection.

He loved her voice.

She liked talking. She could talk through an entire meal, without him having to say a single word. Jack was, for the first time, given to listening. He liked hearing about her. About her home and family - about her Aunt Tamara who was in an asylum, and her grandmother who had actually succeeded in divorcing her first husband. He learned all he could about her life and the way she thought. He learned her perception on everything; the way her mind worked. There were times, however, when he stopped listening to her, and simply allowed her voice to drone on. He would not stop her; she needed to talk to someone, but he did not exactly listen. He would sit and stare at her - tune her voice out, if his ears tired of her - and simply examine every detail of her face. It was her appearance he had fallen for first, after all.

Sometimes, she listened.

He liked talking to her. She seemed absolutely intrigued by him - by his family history and by his dreams of the West. He liked saying her name while conversing, and he repeated it often just for the sake of saying it. _Evangeline_. Evangeline ... well, the one thing she hadn't touched upon was her last name. He didn't even know her husband's first name, although she enjoyed speaking about him. There was a deep sense of commitment, and loyalty, and pride in her voice when she talked about him. Jack refused to think of it as love. She _couldn't_ love him. If she did, she wouldn't be seeing him every day. And yet ... sometimes, for an entire hour, she would relate stories about her husband. About little things he would say; about his passions and his dislikes. Oft times, he would climb through her window and she would comment on how readily she might send him out, if she could. She would say she had committed herself to making him leave, because she and her husband had made the most fantastic love, and it was cruel to allow another man in her house without him knowing. Even so, she never sent him away.

He was unsure.

Until the fourth day, anyway. On the fourth day, she let him kiss her - not simply a peck on the cheek, which was all the more she'd allowed previously - but truly, meaningfully kiss her. He felt then as if they'd reached a milestone. It was a turning point, and slowly - day by day - their affections grew. Where before she might simply speak, she touched his hand in conversation. Where before her touch might have only been the brush of her digits, she lingered. She'd stare at him, for longer lengths of time, and a beautiful new light would grow unbeknownst to her in her sapphire eyes. He would take note, more frequently now, how she prolonged their goodbyes; how in the very press of her lips, there was something new, and more developed than there had been before.

She was falling in love with him.

Jack was confident in this fact. After the fourth day, she stopped saying that the only reason she was meeting him was for the sake of conversation. On the sixth day, the day before this very day, she had ... Maybe it was a sign misread. But he felt something ... deeper, and more certain in her farewelling kiss that couldn't quite end.

He looked up.

The memory of the previous day still lingered on in his mind as he allowed his eyes to travel up from the plate of food she had prepared for him. Reeking saurkraut, a tough morsel of beef from a previous night.

She was a terrible cook.

She was twisting her fork in the air to emphasize her statements, and she looked off just slightly - as was her custom. Evangeline never really met anyone in the eye for very long. He could feel the heat of his desire staring out of his gaze at her. He wondered if she could feel his eyes like hands upon her face and throat, fumbling with the buttons of her blouse ... He wondered if she could see the thoughts of his mind. He could feel the heightened intrepidation of his heart now. Truly, there _was_ more in that farewelling kiss from the previous day. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, the voice of one of his first girlfriends glittered mockingly, _Silly boy, you don't think with that ..._ yet he brought himself to believe that it was not testosterone that drove him to believe that she loved him.

She could feel the burning of his eyes.

"And so my sister, in her vast intelligence, turns to me and says, very angrily, she says ..."

Evangeline looked up, and her mouth remained slightly parted in question. He watched her brow furrow in wonder, and her gorgeous, magical eyes cloud in confusion.

" 'Are you color-blind? It _says_ P'," she finished, a question balancing on her voice. He allowed his fork to clatter against the porcelain of the plate. Jack leaned over the table, took her face in his hand, and gave her the kiss. It was not simply _a_ kiss, like any other they had shared over these few days. It was passionate, and desireous, and in so many ways ... dangerous.

Even still, she took him by the hand, and led him into her room.

* * *

The metallic click of a disengaging lock woke him up. The swing of a door on rusted hinges awoke her. But it was the voice that struck fear in their hearts. The voice that made their eyes turn to each other in guilt and fright (guilt being hers, fright being his). His cowardice was standing upon unstable ground. He loved her, didn't he? And he would fight this man for her. Indeed, he would! Simply because he had managed to find her first ...

"Yah husband - he a big man?"

She swallowed nervously, bringing a finger to her lips.

"Ev, I'm home! Ev?"

Maybe, if Jack Kelly hadn't been paralyzed into a state of shock, his mind would have filled with rage at the injustice of this man shortening her beautiful name to simply "Ev." Maybe his rage, then, would have prepared him to stand his own. Maybe he would have had the guts to take her by the hand and pull her out the window and onto the fire escape with him - their clothes bundled in their arms for the moment until they were safe to replace them. It was a fleeting dream, and probably would have been enacted, if only ...

He knew that voice.

Evangeline was scrambling to get out of the bed. To pull on the easier articles of her clothing. To run her hands through her tangles of hair in the vain hope that they would appear normal. Jack watched her, muscles frozen. It was no use running now - the man would have to be an idiot not to suspect something, even if he had the time to escape.

Which he obviously didn't.

For the bedroom door was swung open now, and Evangeline's husband was revealed. For a split second, the room was charged with the electricity of shock and awe. It dulled to a throbbing pain as quickly as it had risen. Pain, too, was shortlived. Jack could feel the man's rage and anger through the tense air between the mussed bed and the doorway.

Life is a dreadful, miserable thing.

"I always hoped I'd see you again, Jack."

Jack drew his tongue over his lips, avoiding the piercing eyes. Out of the very corner of his gaze, he glanced guiltily at Evangeline - her blouse thrown unevenly over her slender shoulders and doing a rather poor job at disclosing her naked torso - not that there was reason to any longer. There was no inch of her either man had not seen before. He begged for her eyes, but she refused, focusing her pathetically feminine pleading on her husband. Being denied the reassurance of her gaze, he mumbled:

"Please tell me yah husband's name ain't Jacobs."

He heard the husband take a foreboding step, though he continued no further than that length of his foot. His stomach dropped with the scrape of his shoe against the floorboard.

"David Jacobs," as if he had to state it, "The name my mother gave me, Francis Sullivan."

Jack visibly winced under the jagged edges of the statement. He heard more than saw the contracting of Evangeline's throat in a surprised little gulp. He could feel her eyes boring into his hand; apparently, the razor mercilessness of David's gaze had gotten to her, too.

"What are you doing home, dear? It's only three."

As if it really mattered.

"Machine on my floor broke down. They let us all off early until they get it fixed."

Jack heard her clear her throat in an embarrassed display, and slide to the edge of the bed. He wasn't exactly sure of her reason until he heard the friction of her stockings being pulled over her legs. Without a motion wavering from her present activity, her voice came quietly:

"How do you know each other?"

As if _that_ really mattered.

His eyes were swords of accusation, boring deep and precise into Jack's face. He really didn't want to look up, and he decided to avoid it for as long as he possibly could.

"We were friends as kids. Isn't that right, Jack?"

He never thought he'd be beaten by the likes of David Jacobs. But he was being pummelled worse now than he had ever been soaked in the entirity of his life. Nervously, he glanced up, then back down to where his pants lay in a crumpled mess on the floor. On _his_ floor. On _David's_ floor. A poisonous feeling of illness was growing in his gut and creeping through the networks of his innards. He reached down and grasped the threadbare fabric. Suddenly, he had no desire to look into her eyes. Suddenly, there was no reassurance in those enigmatic, violet depths. He feared, if he looked at her, the disease knotting itself in the depths of his body would grow. The disease that was the guilt of having made love to his wife. Having made love to _David's_ wife.

"Yeah," he agreed, his voice barely audible. A tense quiet descended on the three; a silence that screamed threats and harsh words and violent rage. Jack had to break it, or his ear drums would shatter. "Well," he coughed nervously. "If this ain't awkward ..."

"Get the hell out of my house."

The smart-ass in Jack Kelly wanted to retort that it wasn't a house at all; the man in him wanted to stand up to the threatening breverity of his friend's tone; the guilt in him wanted to flee out the window while he still could. Humbly, he looked up at David - surveyed the man he had become. He was the same, at first glance, but slowly the matured developements began to manifest themselves. The broadening of his shoulders; the authoritative set of his jaw. His arms and hands were harder, showed signs of work - factory work, as he well knew. As teenagers, Jack had by far the upper hand, having labored harder and having endured more of life's snares. Now, he was very confident in the fact that David could pummel him, if he willed. His eyes slowly found the angry, betrayed gaze, and the sickening pain in his stomach flared.

"Davey, I didn't - "

"Get. Out. Jack," the icy shards of his words dashed him with clean little cuts of pain. Jack took a split second to glance at Evangeline, still fumbling with her stockings. In that fragment of time, David succeeded in pushing him to the unforgiving floorboards. He strained his gaze up, but all he could see was the hurt ferocity of his old friend's eyes. "Don't look at her! She's not yours to look at! That was always your problem, Jack. You had no goddamned idea what was yours for the taking and what wasn't!"

"David ..."

Her voice was not chiding (it did not fit a woman), but it pled that he did not continue. What reason did he have to listen to her?

"You feel bad now, 'cause she's my wife. But you wouldn't have felt a damned thing if she belonged to somebody you didn't even know."

"Davey, you don't understand ..."

Jack truly wished he knew what David didn't understand.

"No, I do. I really do. You're not that hard to figure out, Jack. I liked you, I really did. And I always hoped I'd see you again."

It was as if he was appologizing, which made the infliction in his innards throb the worse. He had no reason to take on that sort of tone when he had no reason to be sorry.

"Just not in bed with my wife."

That was the searing pain that took the cake. He had realized it, before, in his mind. But somehow, it hurt worse - the infection of guilt stung more precisely - when David stated it. _My wife._ He had acknowledged it, in the confines of his skull, but the possession had not been there. _My wife._ Jack wished more than anything that he had not gone to market that morning seven days prior.

He wanted David to kick him. Or to bend down and punch him until that soft darkness consumed him. He wanted to be beaten to a mass of fleshy pulp; he'd feel then as if he'd paid the penalty for betraying his friend - granted, unbeknownst.

David was a crueller man than he was a teenager.

"Get the hell out of my house."

With his shirt in his fist and his wrinkled pants carelessly pulled to his hips, Jack Kelly obeyed the heart-wrenching command, his mind reeling with the guilt David had laid across his shoulders to carry.

* * *

_Two quick notes._

_1. If you're going, "Dear God, I thought she said this was a love story", you're suffering from misconception. There are all sorts of love stories, mon ami. (LOL - yay, twists!)_

_2. The little bit Evangeline was recounting to Jack (the "Are you color-blind, it says P") is actually a little inside joke involving my sister and a road sign. I always like jabbing at reality._

_Read'n'Review!_


	3. trois

_trois_

Seven days.

Another whole week had passed, and that ailment in his gut had not been extinguished. Every day, of those passed seven days, Jack could have talked to either David or Evangeline, if he willed. He'd even set his mind on it, that fifth day. But his intentions were quickly dismissed. Every night, of those passed seven nights, he had sat outside the apartment, on the fire escape. He had no idea of the time that would pass as he sat there listening ... He never dozed. He was afraid he had caused something irreversible in David Jacobs' life, and he was determined to reassure himself that he had not.

There was no reassurance.

Not the first day. Nor the second, or third. Those first three days, they slept in separate rooms. David must have been on the couch - it would be the guilt-inducingly gentleman thing to do. Any other man would force his wife onto the cold floor for her sin, but not David. No, he let her sleep in the bed. Jack doubted she slept all that much, if she felt as guilty as he did. Those first three days were torture for him, and he hoped David was pleased with himself. He'd never felt so wretched and worthless and criminal in his whole life as he did in those three days.

Day Four.

That was the night that things looked up. That was the night they said something to each other. Jack remembered leaning against the cast iron railing, as always, awaiting the next silent night to enflame the affliction of his innards. But it was that day that a sort of antibiotic lessened the pain. He remembered the creaking of the door handle, and he remembered his brow furrowing in wonder, because Evangeline was already in bed. His mind recalled the soft, uneasy:

"I just thought I'd say good night."

Jack had waited impatiently for Evangeline to respond, but she was pathetically wordless with shock. That irritated him. It would start the whole process over. But just as the door began to swing with awkward, expectant sluggishness, she jumped to her senses:

"No, don't! Don't ... don't sleep in there tonight."

"Evangeline - "

"Please! Please don't make me suffer through another night alone."

If he could've, Jack would have shouted at David to just join his wife, for the love of God, in that precarious silence as husband decided to mend the relationship. Then he heard the door close quietly, and heard the footsteps shuffle into further into the room. There was a lot of soft, rustling noises as David apparently undressed. After a while, this suspicion was confirmed, because Evangeline took the risk of whispering:

"You look so good, David. Like our wedding night."

There was a weighty sigh heaved, and Jack heard the springs of the mattress creak with the mass of his body. He had to strain his ears, but just barely he heard Evangeline's plead:

"Darling, make love to me."

And Jack bit his lip, hoping against hope that the next thing he heard would be moans of pleasure and reconciliation.

David had become cruel.

To both Jack and Evangeline. Not that he realized that his cruelty - despite its justice - was aimed at Jack as much as it was at Evangeline when he murmured:

"No."

There was a silent moment of shock. Then: "No? David, when you came in here, I thought - "

"No," her husband repeated. "No, I don't want to. I really don't see anything all that appealing about you right now."

And so the feeling crept vengefully back into Jack's system. There was only one redeeming hope in that night, and that was the fact that neither one of them left the bed. Each stuck to his and her side of the bed like a war post, but neither left. That's why Jack almost talked to them on the fifth day. He wanted to tell them it was ridiculous to live that way. He'd forgotten it had only been three days since he'd been with Evangeline, and David was being comparably forgiving, considering the circumstances.

Then he'd have to explain how he knew, though.

The fifth night passed similarly. But the sixth night; the sixth night, Jack decided he would not have to listen outside their window any longer. He was relieved of that portion of the guilt - that portion of the guilt that screamed that he had ruined a friend's marriage. He felt better after the sixth night.

It hadn't started out promising.

It had begun with something worse than silence. It started with a coarse squabble. Something about sheets ... or pillows, or something ...

"Just get out of the bed, then! You don't want to sleep with me, you don't even really want to share the bed with me! So why don't you go back to the living room?"

"Because I wasn't getting a damned minute of sleep out there! Maybe _you_ should go to the living room! I bought the damned bed, I should at least get to sleep in it!"

"Then you _can_ sleep in it! Why don't you stop trying to be such a gentleman for five minutes and just kick me out onto the street? That's what you want to do! Why don't you just say it? Why don't you just say I'm a whore? That's what you're really saying, anyway!"

"Oh, now you want me to call you a whore!"

"You've been saying it all week! I just wish you'd say it out loud!"

"Why? Why would that make you happier?"

There was a soft pause, and Jack could hear Evangeline's breath gathering in a sob. Then, quietly, almost inaudibly, she choked out her explanation. He understood what she meant. It was the same reason he'd wanted David to hit him, the day they were discovered.

"Because then I'd feel like I got what I deserved."

Jack wasn't sure what happened in the silence that followed until he heard Evangeline suck in a much-needed breath. Another silence. Then the mattress creaked heavily, and he could hear their breathing from the fire escape. He couldn't help the immature chuckle in his throat. For some reason it really hadn't registered in his mind that David having a wife meant David had sex.

Sometimes, Jack still felt like he was seventeen.

The rest of the time, he felt much older than he was. He'd felt like that for as long as he could remember; when he was ten, he'd felt twenty, and now that he was twenty-seven, he felt fifty-five. If he should die a young man, it would only be in body. Jack wondered where all the good days had gone, if there had ever been any good days. He remembered being friends with David, when they were teenagers, but then David went back to school, and it all just ... it ended. And right after that, it seemed, all of his other friends moved on, too. Bumlets and Racetrack and Snoddy got married really quickly; rumor was each had gotten their present wives "in trouble." Someone said Skittery and Blink were in jail, and Mush had gone out West and taken some land in Nebraska or somewhere. Spot had a bar in Brooklyn, and Boots played saxophone for a band in Harlem. And before he knew it, everyone was gone.

He was a kid trapped in a man's body.

David was right. He didn't have any idea what was his for the taking and what wasn't. He was the only one who hadn't moved on. He'd been living in the past, and he hadn't even known it. He hadn't been trying to settle down, or move on, or whatever. He really _hadn't_ cared that Evangeline was a married woman. He was avoiding adulthood. Maybe, then again, he'd been an adult his whole life.

Why didn't he just die?

Jack let out a long sigh as he considered all this, stirring his coffee lackidasically. Lazily, his eyes travelled to the sunlight streaming in through the door, and he snorted at himself. "Tibby's." He was probably the only one who still came here. Jack came here instinctively, and he hadn't even taken the time to notice that the people who passed in and out of that door were strangers. The man who owned the place wasn't even the same. Tibby's son now ran the restaraunt. Jack wondered vaguely if the original Tibby was dead.

"Mind if I sit down?"

The voice itself made him jump, and his eyes travelled in surprise to the unreadable blue eyes, so familiar and yet so very foreign.

"Be my guest."

"That mean you're paying for my coffee?"

"Don't kid yahself."

He laughed, and it made Jack laugh, too. Suddenly, it occurred to him that he wasn't seventeen anymore, and he shouldn't be laughing with David. This was supposed to be awkward.

"I figured I'd find you here," David told him, rather plainly. Jack's brow lifted.

"Why's that?"

David cleared his throat, glancing away. Jack wasn't sure what made his question so uncomfortable for his friend.

"I - I'd see you here. Drinking your coffee. I don't know why I never stopped in to have a cup with you ... "

Jack's gaze jumped up to his in surprise. "What madeja stop this time?"

David shrugged, not quite meeting his eyes. "I'm sorry, Jack."

His friend stared at him, mouth agape. When he finally managed to regain himself, he demanded, "Why? What'dya got to be sorry for? Damn, I should be the one appologizin'! I - Dave, I'm - "

"I'm sorry I never invited you to my wedding."

The phrase stopped Jack mid-sentence. He watched David a moment, but the young man still wouldn't return his gaze.

"I'm sorry I never introduced her to you, or had you come and help me pick out the ring. I'm sorry you weren't there, Jack, and I'm sorry I made sure of it."

Jack took a deep breath, allowing the silence to grow between them. David's eyes glanced up to his questioningly, and Jack finally managed:

"I'm sorry things went the way they did."

The ghost of a smile hovered over David's face, and he nodded wordlessly. Meekly, Jack asked:

"Ever'thin' okay? Between you and ... Evangeline?"

David met his eyes, and let out a sigh. "Not ... completely. But they will be. Soon."

Jack nodded his understanding, whether he comprehended or not. David's gaze flitted a glance to the clock, and he began to get up.

"I've got to be at the factory in fifteen minutes."

Jack's eyes drifted to the dial now, too, and he nodded knowingly. "I got about twenty 'til I gotta be at the grocery."

David stood, not really moving. It was as if he expected something, or was trying to say something. Finally ...

"Then maybe I'll be seeing you?"

Jack glanced up from his coffee, being sure he caught David's eyes dead on. His stomach twisted nervously, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if he didn't say it. If he didn't at least suggest it ...

"David, do you wanna have coffee with me? Tomorrah morning?"

His friend smiled, as if with relief, and nodded. It made Jack smile, too. A lot of things were over, he realized. A lot of things that would never come back. Some things are worth abandoning, but other things, Jack knew, weren't meant to die. Some things, marriages and friendships and other things of love, were meant to be renewed, if they had to be, and kept by the faithful.

_fin_


End file.
